F1 DIGEST THEMONTH’SBIGSTORIESAT AGLANCE
INSIDER
PICTURES:GARETHHARFORD;GLENNDUNBAR;GIORGIOPIOLASkirts,asseenonthe
LigierJS11(top),will
notbe necessaryfor
the2021versionof
groundeffect(above)realised the way the current cars work, with complicated and
finely optimised wings and bargeboards managing airflow,
is detrimental to racing because they cannot followeach
other closely enough.
Instead, there is going to be more emphasis on ‘ground
effect’ throughthe u se of underfloor venturi and a large
diffuser to achieve similar amounts of downforce. More
crucially, going down this route should help allow cars to
get much closer to each other.
FIA head of single-seater matters Nikolas Tombazis said:
“We want to make it more possible for cars to race and follow
each other and to have more exciting battles. We want to
have tyres thatenable people to fight each other without
degrading or only giving a short interval for the person
attacking to attack.
“They are simpler than the currentcars because a lot of
the small components have been removed,espec ially in front
of the sidepods, and the frontwing s are simpler.
“There is adiffu ser going right under the car – a venturi-
type channel. There are tunnels under thesidepods from
the front to the back.”
Current predictions are for cars to go from losing around
45% of downforce when they are two car lengths behind – as
they do at the moment– to just 5-10%.
Tombazis added: “Two strong vortices [coming off the rear
wing] suck in a lot of the rear-wing wake, and as a result what
the following car sees is much cleaner flow. We are froma
near 50%, down to about 5-10% loss. So we have a massive
reduction of the loss of downforce for thefollowing car.
“But we are aware that when developmenttakes place from
teams who don’t carewhat the followingcar pe rformance is
and just care about the front car, that may negate some of
these gains. That is our task: to make rules that try to prevent
that as much as possible.”
Beyond thechange in car concept, F1’s stakeholders also
want to ensure that the tyre rules work better, to avoid the
problem of cars beingunable to battle for toolong because
the outer casing overheats.
This will require a new philosophy, moving away from high-
degradation tyres to a more benign product that can be pushed
harder for longer.
As F1 chief technical officer of motorsport Pat Symonds
said: “We were asking completely the wrong things of Pirelli
over the past few years. The high-degradationtarge t was not
the way to go, I think.”
F1 is also evaluating a reduction in driver aids, a potential
return for refuelling, andlimiting the use of telemetry to hold
back the influence engineers are having on the racing.21.06.19 Russian Sergey Sirotkin will
double up as reserve driver
for both McLaren and Renault
for the rest of the year
22.06.19 McLaren reveals plans to
upgrade its windtunnel at
the MTC in Woking
24.06.19 After meeting with the FIA,
Lewis Hamilton says the
planned 2021 rules require
“serious changes”25.06.19 Williams finally confirms the
departure of chief technical
officer Paddy Lowe after
leave for “personal reasons”
since March
02.07.19 McLaren’s engineering director
Pat Fry is put on “gardening
leave” after indicating he
wants to leave the team
10.07.19 Silverstone and F1 agree
deal for the British GP to
continue until 2024
22.07.19 Daniel Ricciardo hit with
£10m legal claim from
former advisor Glenn Beavis